GRID Global Foundation
The Mental Health Tool Box
What is the mental health tool box?
The mental health tool box’s objective aims to empower people to develop a deeper understanding of their mental states and emotions, and how to constructively work with them; regulate their nervous system; and to create safe and compassionate environments to interact with others in a healthy, supportive way.
To achieve this objective it consists of three parts:
1) a theoretical part providing basic information about how the brain works, what creates different emotional states and trauma. This aims to empower people to put into context what they experience on a mental and emotional level by understanding of how and why they experience certain emotions and how to handle them according to their intentions.
2) a variety of essential tools, similar to a first aid kit, to consciously manage challenging and often overwhelming emotional states like anxiety, anger etc. and to shift to more pleasant ones like contentment, kindness and compassion. The tools are easy enough to be used on a daily basis to maintain mental hygiene akin to taking care of one’s physical hygiene. This happens on two levels. The first is mental training through increasing one’s awareness by engaging in simple meditations or mindfulness exercises and contemplations. The second aims at regulating the body’s nervous system through exercises like conscious breathing, movement and touch.
3) Exercises on how to create safe and compassionate spaces teach how to express one’s emotions in an direct but appropriate ways through techniques like non-violent communication. The other side of the coin is to learn compassionate listening by giving someone else the room to express themselves without being judged, mirroring what has Been communicated to ensure accurate understanding, and discussing constructively what course of action they would like to take. An addition can be to introduce effective ways to ask for forgiveness and to grant forgiveness.
What does the mental health tool box include?
1) The theoretical part
- an overview of the main parts of the brain including the primal brain or reptilian brain, the amygdala and the frontal lobes, and how they work together in perceiving impulses through the different senses; how feelings and emotions are generated as a consequence and the different reactions to them including going into trauma responses of fight, flight or freeze. The emphasis is put on making sense of these perceptions, including interpreting them based on one’s values, experiences, memories etc. to become empowered to control and shift them without feeling victimised or overwhelmed by the resulting emotions. Additionally this understanding helps to communicate feelings, emotions, thoughts, reactions and so on accurately.
2. The practical part:
The mental training aims at directing one’s awareness to the present moment through simple meditations and mindfulness exercises, which help to disengage from overwhelming emotions, overthinking, impulsive reactions etc. Instead a wider perspective is attained, which allows for more healthy and appropriate choices. Contemplations and reflections deepen the understanding of one’s mental landscape, give an intellectual understanding of the causes and effects for one’s emotional reactions and introduce possibilities to consciously dissolve some challenging thought patterns and behaviours. Another aspect is that the contemplation of wholesome emotions like love, compassion, kindness and contentment help to balance and relax the mind, creating new thought patterns and ways of interpreting more challenging situations in life. In turn this contributes to emotional resilience and resourcefulness.
On a physical level basic techniques to regulate one’s nervous system like deep breathing exercises, movements like shaking through trauma release exercises (TRE), somatic exercises targeting the vagus nerve and tapping (emotional freedom technique – EFT). This prevents the body from going into shock or locking trauma into its system.
3. Creation of a safe space to share one’s current mental and emotional state:
The emphasis of this section is to learn how to articulate emotions, thoughts, reactions clearly in a way that is not blaming or accusatory, but with the aim of finding a constructive way to handle them and move forward. Non-violent communication is one tool, which ensures that. Active compassionate listening skills facilitate the creation of a space where full expression is welcomed without interruption, judgment or denying the other person’s experience, and being a partner in exploring how to beat deal with what they are facing. This part can include a section on the art of apologising and how to grant forgiveness.
How is the mental health tool box implemented?
Design of the mental health tool box is done by mental health professionals associated with the GGF and carefully beta tested group representing different ages, professions, ethnicities etc. and refined into a generic and easy to adapt program of four to six sessions.
The design of each session allows them be delivered through internet based classes or in-person, targeting a maximum of 20 people. The sessions are a mix of teaching through a trained facilitator, discussions encouraging active participation of the group, and the application of the tools in breakout rooms or small groups of two to four people. The curriculum also includes assignments to practice in between sessions, which can be supported by assigning accountability and homework partners between the participants, ensuring that the material is applied and integrated. Actively applying the material in every day life allows for feedback by the participants, so their specific circumstances and challenges can be addressed.
The delivery of the program happens through partner organisations worldwide, who implement mental health programs for example in schools, community health programs, local communities, businesses etc., giving them free reign to adjust the content of the tool box to their experiences and understanding of the local cultural and societal circumstances. It is then tested on local target groups and further fine tuned to ensure its effectiveness and ease of delivery before rolling out for a larger scale dissemination.
To receive funding from the GGF, the partner organisations provide a project proposal on how they believe the mental health tools box fits into the aims of their organisation, design an implementation plan covering how they will train, who they will target, how the training will be conducted, how many people they estimate to reach, what support the GGF can provide etc. When the plan is approved and the adapted tool box has been beta tested, the implementation can be rolled out. Additionally the GGF provides an equal amount of funding as assigned to the tool box implementation for projects of the partner NGOs connected to mental health, community building, empowerment of disadvantaged groups etc., so they can fulfil their overall vision.
Spin offs of the mental health tool box can be explored with time, including peer counselling programs, cooperation with government initiatives, mental health sanctuaries providing further and in-depth support, and a global app for facilitators and participants of the program.
What is the result?
The outcome of learning and implementing the tools is an increased awareness about one’s personal mental health and the mental health of others. The participants are empowered to handle distressing emotions and thoughts, de-escalate them and direct their emotional and mental state towards a more wholesome frame of mind. It also fosters greater understanding for the trials of others, teaches how to set up a safe space for sharing and provides the tools for compassionate and effective responses.